Marvel Recruits Ta Nehisi-Coates To Pen Black Panther Comic Series

Due out next year.

The New York Timesreports that Ta-Nehisi Coates will write a Black Panther comic for Marvel. Coates is best known for his work at The Atlantic, as well as his second book, Between The World And Me, which was published earlier this year.

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Coates told The Times that comics represented “an intimate part of my childhood and, at this point... It was mostly through pop culture, through hip-hop, through Dungeons & Dragons and comic books that I acquired much of my vocabulary.” He also recalled encountering minority figures in comics: “I’m sure it meant something to see people who looked like me in comic books. It was this beautiful place that I felt pop culture should look like.”

Marvel’s editor in chief, Axel Alonso, described Black Panther as a character with “the baddest costume in comics… a dude who is smarter and better than everyone.” Brian Stelfreeze will serve as illustrator on A Nation Under Our Feet, which is slated to arrive in 2016. Black Panther is also scheduled to appear on the big screen next year in Captain America: Civil War.